Labouring Children (1980) is a study of child immigrants, based on numerous original sources, and presents new views on childhood, social work and Canadian rural communities. Between 1868 and 1925 eighty thousand British boys and girls, mostly under fourteen, were apprenticed as agricultural labourers and domestic servants in rural Canada. A surprising feature is the involvement of the Evangelicals, who considered that they were giving children from poor homes a fresh start in the world, yet who were otherwise famed for their emphasis on the virtues of close family ties; and conversely, the parents of the children, largely labourers, who were at the time regarded as too ground down by economic imperatives to find time for affection, but who expended a great deal of effort to maintain contact across imposing distances. This book begins with an analysis of the growing child’s place within these families, and looks at the alternating prominence of demands for wage labour and fear of the ‘dangerous classes’ which influenced emigration policy idealism. The demand for child labour in rural Canada and the work of the children is described in an analysis of the apprenticeship system. The book also illustrates how the British child immigrants were household rather than family members in Canada and outsiders in the rural schoolroom as well. As adults they did not generally become farmers but entered factory jobs, service employment in urban Canada, migrated to the US or returned to Britain. Finally, the book discusses the ending of the movement after World War I, as Canadian social workers, echoing British socialists, argued that even the children of the poor deserved fourteen years of growing and schooling before they were obliged to sell their labour. Incorporating much rich documentation from numerous case records, and presenting a new quantitative use of some of those records, this book sheds light on a dark corner of the Canadian migrant experience.

Mobility - the movements of people, things, and ideas, as well as their associated cultural meanings - has been a key factor in shaping Canadians' perceptions of and interactions with their country. Approaching the burgeoning field of environmental history in Canada through the lens of mobility reveals some of the distinctive ways in which Canadians have come to terms with the country's climate and landscape. Spanning Canada's diverse regions, throughout its history, from the closing of the age of sail to the contemporary era of just-on-time delivery, Moving Natures: Mobility and the Environment in Canadian History examines a wide range of topics, from the impact of seasonal climactic conditions on different transportation modes, to the environmental consequences of building mobility corridors and pathways, to the relationship between changing forms of mobility with tourism and other recreational activities. Contributors make use of traditional archival sources, as well as historical geographic information systems (HGIS), qualitative and quantitative analysis, and critical theory. This thought-provoking collection divides the intersection of environmental and mobility history into two approaches. The chapters in the first section deal primarily with the construction and productive use of mobility technologies and infrastructure, as well as their environmental constraints and consequences. The chapters in the second section focus on consumers' uses of those vehicles and pathways: on pleasure travel, tourism, and recreational mobility. Together, they highlight three quintessentially Canadian themes: seasonality, links between mobility and natural resource development, and urbanites' experiences of the environment through mobility. With contributions by: Judy Burns Jim Clifford Ken Cruikshank Jessica Dunkin Elizabeth L. Jewett Don Lafreniere Elsa Lam Maude-Emmanuelle Lambert J.I. Little Daniel Macfarlane Merle Massie Tor H. Oiamo Joy Parr Thomas Peace Andrew Watson

Visions of life in the 1950s often spring from the United States: supermarkets, freeways, huge gleaming cars, bright new appliances, automated households. Historian Joy Parr looks beyond the generalizations about the indulgence of this era to find a specifically Canadian consumer culture. Focusing on the records left by consumer groups and manufacturers, and relying on interviews and letters from many Canadian women who had set up household in the decade after the war, she reveals exactly how and why Canadian homemakers distinguished themselves from the consumer frenzy of their southern neighbours. Domestic Goods focuses primarily on the design, production, promotion, and consumption of furniture and appliances. For Parr, such a focus demands an analysis of the intertwining of the political, economic, and aesthetic. Parr examines how the shortage of appliances in the early postwar years was a direct result of government reconstruction policy, and how the international style of 'high modernism' reflected the postwar dream of free trade. But while manufacturers devised new plans for the consumer, depression-era frugality and a conscious setting of priorities within the family led potential customers to evade and rework what was offered them, eventually influencing the kinds of goods created. This book addresses questions such as, who designed furniture and appliances, and how were these designs arrived at? What was the role of consumer groups in influencing manufacturers and government policy? Why did women prefer their old wringer washers for over a decade after the automatic washer was brought in? In finding the answers the author celebrates and ultimately suggests reclaiming a particularly Canadian way of consuming.